patrissimo: Polyphasic sleep

Patri Friedman (

patrissimo) wrote,
@ 2005-07-15 23:28:00

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Polyphasic sleep
Anyone tried polyphasic sleep? I'm tempted.

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serendipity

fare
2005-07-16 07:28 am UTC (link)

Funny that you mention. Subscribe to the mailing-list on yahoo groups. It demands some discipline, but it looks like it works. Note that you can start biphasic with say a nap after lunch, and then add more naps and less night sleep everytime. You don't have to do it through massive sleep deprivation as they "recommend". Try just enough deprivation to be sleepy at nap time. Then add a nap, and a nap, and a nap. And even if you go full "uberman schedule", think about having a weekend of full sleep every three weeks or so. Tell us about your experiments!

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Re: serendipity

patrissimo
2005-07-16 07:39 am UTC (link)

your journal is actually where I saw the link, I believe.

One of my concerns is that I've never been very good at napping...I tend to have a tough time sleeping even at night, let alone during the day. On the other hand, I sleep so badly normally anyway, that it will only take so-so polyphasic sleep to equal my monophasic. If I'm gonna be tired all the time, I might as well have more hours in the day!

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sleeping advice

fare
2005-07-16 07:56 am UTC (link)

A blindfold and proper bed temperature help me get to sleep more easily, day or night. In a slightly noisy environment, earplugs can help a bit, too. Physical effort might help too. (Exercise before you lie down.) Last but not least, schedule your bed time so it happens exactly at the moment when sleepiness arrives (next 80 minute cycle or so).

The idea is to *not* get tired all the time, but to be more aware all the time. Surprisingly, you feel quite good after a short nap. If you're suitably sleep deprived, you'll just really feel sleepy a few hours afterwards, at which time you better get the next nap, otherwise THEN you'll be very tired and things can get out of hand.

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	Re: sleeping advice gustavolacerda 2005-07-16 11:00 am UTC (link)
	do you know any models of sleepiness cycles and how they interact with exercise, food, etc? (Reply to this)(Parent)

resipisco
2005-07-16 07:34 am UTC (link)

I brought this up tonight in conversation with Mark who has tried it before, but he predictably didn't stick with it and quickly moved onto the more practical power nap. Of the people I know who have tried it, the most successful attempt lasted a week.

The permanent sleep deficit required for a polyphasic schedule is too demanding for most, but given your chronic insomnia, you may not notice a difference. If you decide to try it out, good luck and document it.

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	joe_tofu 2005-07-16 08:18 am UTC (link)
	I'd like to know if it works when one is on a fitness regimen and needs sleep for muscles to repair themselves. Seems like it's more applicable to "brain" workers. OTOH, I have gotten accustomed to the Asian work schedule at times, which usually means sleeping 5 or 6 hours at night and "power napping" during a long lunch break. Feels good. (Reply to this)

Yeah, I tried that.

glenra
2005-07-16 11:15 am UTC (link)

I tried it for a couple months in 1994. It worked, but with an office job it was inconvenient to force myself to take the mid-day naps. Also, I got bored being awake in the middle of the night when everyone else was asleep and all stores were closed (my internet habit was less intense then; there was less to do online anyway). Lastly, I have hair issues - I often look totally bizarre right after waking up unless I get a chance to take a shower. In short, it seemed like it would work great if other people were doing it too.

For a safe mid-afternooner I'd go out to the parking lot and nap in my car with a blindfold on. Set my wrist alarm for 20 minutes.

When given totally free rein - that is, in periods when I don't have a job or a girlfriend to consider - I sometimes tend to shift into an over 25-hour cycle, waking up and staying up later and later until it wraps around.

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	Re: Yeah, I tried that. kirinn 2005-07-16 02:43 pm UTC (link)
	I shifte all the way up to a 30-hour cycle during finals one year, and felt just fine. I think my ideal could easily be somewhere around 27. Pity this doesn't interface too well with the rest of the world. (Reply to this)(Parent)

herooftheage
2005-07-16 07:24 pm UTC (link)

I don't think this is so likely to work for you, for two reasons: a) requires quite a lot of discipline to really keep right, and b) you seem to like free-running for long periods.

What I've done for the last decade or so really amounts to just not worrying about sleep anymore - I go to bed whenever I'm tired, and get out of bed whenever I wake up. The result of that is that my most common night's sleep is about 5.5 hours, but I often drop down to 3 or shoot up to 10. It does also mean that I sometimes sleep for a couple of hours, wake up for an hour or two, and then go back to bed.

Once I got used to that last little trick, all my sleep problems disappeared, since I never lie in bed trying to go to sleep. It took a while to get used to: now it is second nature, and though a person on the outside would probably describe me as have sleep problems, I really don't notice them anymore.

I go through periods where I feel like taking naps. Whenever that happens, I take 'em.

I don't know if you can manage such a scheme while working roughly standard hours, but if you can, I think it would be a better sleep experiment for you than straight polyphasic sleeping.

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	(Anonymous) 2005-07-18 07:29 pm UTC (link)
	yeah, I think I agree with you. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	I agree (Anonymous) 2006-01-24 02:02 pm UTC (link)
	Those irregular sleeping hours with "sleep when sleepy" work for me. It would be tempting to try this polyphasic stuff but it has lots of bad rap and those blogs are rathter discouraging. Here are many funy fragments :) http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm (Reply to this)(Parent)

depression

ftoc
2005-07-17 05:42 pm UTC (link)

I notice that one way polyphasic sleep is supposed to be a satisfactory replacement for "natural" sleep by inducing earlier entry of REM sleep. I recently read in one of my science journals (sorry, couldn't quickly locate the reference) that short entry time to REM is one of the most effective predictors of the onset of depression within the following year. So I would be very cautious about polyphasic sleep, especially if you have a personal or family history of depression.

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	Re: depression (Anonymous) 2006-02-16 03:39 am UTC (link)
	Considering that the special emotional nature REM sleep has (I don't remember the exact details), it may be that a depressed brain _needs_ more REM, rather it being a marker for depression. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tinkerbell_mk 2005-07-20 12:02 am UTC (link)
	I was online friends with someone who did this a couple years ago, when I knew him he had been doing it for 3 months and he was happy with it though he said he had odd and intense food cravings which he atributed to the sleep paterns. Grape juice is the only one I remember, and I think it was the most prominent. (Reply to this)

	Poly Phasers (Anonymous) 2007-07-03 05:04 pm UTC (link)
	If you're looking for more info on poly-phasic sleep I put together a community site for it at: www.poly-phasers.com (Reply to this)

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